


Shards

by Gyrhan



Category: The Yogscast
Genre: Abuse of Authority, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Background Character Death, Blood and Gore, Gen, Implied/Referenced Cannibalism, Psychological Torture, Suicidal Thoughts, Yoglabs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-03
Updated: 2017-05-03
Packaged: 2018-10-27 06:22:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,728
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10803552
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gyrhan/pseuds/Gyrhan
Summary: Clinical fluorescent tubes shine their rays down onto the shards of glass littering the concrete, giving the impression that the hard floor was in fact speckled with snow that glittered against the harsh white light.Yet neither of the occupants of the room looked to admire the spectacle, far too absorbed in studying the other person, carefully creating conversation and holding tightly onto the tumblers in their grips.(2 years after Honeydew was put into stasis and YogLabs is still going strong, although the same cannot be said for its owner.)





	Shards

The fluorescent lights hummed quietly from the high ceiling of the comparatively small room. Streaks of light against the dull grey concrete, their white radiance gave the room its clinical glow, even with the vain attempt to make the room look homely. Xephos had wanted to remove the light fittings and only use the minimalist desk lamp he had on his table. He had tried doing his paperwork into the night using only the lamp, which emitted a warm yellow light, yet he soon discovered that, when he wanted to leave the room, he had to turn the lamp off from his desk and navigate his way through his room and to the door in pitch blackness. It had led to Xephos scrapping at the door in a desperate attempt to find the number code for the locks that sealed him inside.

Since then, he had not tried again. After all, if he did he would have to avoid the recent build-up of miscellaneous items he had hoarded, in amongst several empty bottles and the smashed glass that littered his office. So Xephos sat beneath the harsh light. They seemed prick his eyes as he stared at the tubes of light reflected in his gin; the image distorted as he moved his hand to lift the glass to his lips and allow the bitter liquid to sting his tongue.

You would think that, after several months - or possibly years, Xephos could no longer tell - of drinking this daily that he would no longer feel the burn of the alcohol down his throat and sitting in his stomach. Clearly he was mistaken. Not that he especially cares, though.

It took 5 knocks to yank him out of his drunken stupor, hypnotised by the twinkling of light in the cut crystal tumbler.

"Come in!" Xephos called, begging whatever evil gods ruled over their world that his voice did not portray his drunkenness. After all, he had had plenty of experience in seeming calm and collected, even with copious amounts of alcohol running through his veins.

In reply, the heavy door shifted ever so slightly. On appearances, the door seemed to be simply made of incredibly thick oak, however those in the know - you could count them on one hand, or rather one finger, as Xephos had decided that no one needed to know this fact, so dispatched of the others rather quickly - were aware that, behind the wooden façade, was half a foot of blast-proof obsidian; a property that was mirrored by the walls of Xephos' office and several other surrounding rooms. And other important rooms around YogLabs. And the cafeteria. After all, you cannot be too safe in YogLabs, even if the last major incident had occurred years prior.

A face appeared behind the door, a brush of pale brown hair, almost ginger, sat atop of the head. The person on the other side seemed to be comparatively short, yet the width of face and chin conveyed that this lack of height was not due to malnourishment. Beady, dark eyes scanned the cluttered room. If it had not been for the completely bare jaw and the grotesquely oversized nose, Xephos could almost have sworn that the person looked ever so slightly like Honeydew-

Xephos shot upright, slamming his glass down onto the desk and feeling the now lukewarm liquid splash onto his hands. The sudden movement and noise from a previously immobile lump at the back of the room caused the testificate to jolt back so violently that their head got caught between the door and the door-frame, colliding with a resounding thump. After several seconds, the testificate began to realise exactly what, or rather who, was the inhabitant of that room, at which point they cracked the door open further and slid inside.

They clutched onto the folder in their hands as if it were a life jacket and they were a survivor of a shipwreck, floundering in the ocean, with this item being the only thing keeping them alive. This may very well be true, as all employees at YogLabs know that disturbing their CEO and boss without good reason would only end badly for you and everything you loved.

Xephos watched this testificate with unfocused eyes. He could see the sheepish look on their face; or at least a look he made himself believe was sheepish and not in fact sheer terror at being in his very presence.

"Ah," Xephos' voice was almost imperceptibly strained at the very effort of staying awake and attentive, but the testificate did not know that and mistook the tension in his speech as disapproval, causing him to stand slightly straighter, "What is it you're here for,-?"

Xephos tried to adjust his eyes on the name-tag pinned to the lapel of the testificate's lab coat, yet every time he attempted to focus on the words, they simply shifted in a blur. He decided to blame this phenomenon on heat haze from some experiment elsewhere and the heat was allowed in through the slightly ajar door. Instead, Xephos clamped his mouth shut and sat back down into the chair, sitting upright in a fashion that he knew made him appear in control. His face dared the testificate to question the abrupt end to his sentence. No one ever questioned him. Anyone that did do so did not live long enough to do it twice. He almost wished someone would talk back to him for once, show some irreverence or rebellion, yet only one person had truly done so ever since the start of YogLabs; or at least one person who he had allowed to do so.

The testificate, who shifted his light green nametag - or rather ‘number-tag’ as it would be more accurately called - which signified a member of the engineering department, began to give a tirade of information. It began with the regular spiel that Xephos had begun to realise that all testificates who spoke to him started with; an apology for disrupting him and a brief overview of the reason as to why they did so. It appeared that all testificates were created with 3 features: large noses, fear of Xephos, and this gods forsaken script to appease him.

"Just get on with it!" He finally cut across the engineer's stream of words, "Just get to the point already."

The testificate nodded their head so fast that it likely gave them some form of whiplash.

"Well, I have here the report on the advancements on the Mechanically Engineered Combat Humanoids- the, uh, 'mechs', sir. We have spent the past 18 months designing and planning what we can do with the design department and-" A slightly raised eyebrow from the CEO made him pause and stutter to a halt. The engineer heaved a sigh, and simply added:

"The 'mechs' can now fly, sir."

Xephos nodded contentedly, allowing his gaze to rest on the testificate who shuffled his papers and checked over them repeatedly. The M.E.C.H.s were some of the most advanced manned machines in the whole of Minecraftia, yet alone YogLabs. There had been research into various other weapons that yielded much higher rates of genocide, yet people seemed so attached to the ability to see those you murdered up close, whilst maintaining perfect safety for yourself.

The ability to fly had been a suggestion by Xephos himself, as well as the addition of higher calibre weapons attached to the mechanised suit to allow more ways for the user to kill or maim whosoever they wished. The flight ability had been something that Xephos remembered being begged for; Honeydew had always wanted to fly.

His face contorted into one of pure rage. Usually, Xephos gave off a cool appearance, his icy look extinguishing any fiery opposition he faced. However, in this moment, his face flushed a bright red, his hand clenching his glass almost to the extent of shattering it into his palm.

Honeyd- _The Dwarf_ had been a sensitive subject since the previous and sole uprising by testificates in YogLabs; a few scientists in the genetics department late at night, tending to experiments, had caught glimpses of Xephos in amongst the cloning tubes, pacing their lengths and staring at the faces of those he knew. The Dwarf had been the last one not put into a stasis in the tubes, his master-clone having previously been suitable for DNA sampling; however the current master-clone was a clone itself, which meant that the DNA had a high chance of corruption. Every single experiment that the genetics and cloning department worked on was to find a way to replicate the original DNA, but to no avail.

So for the 2 years since The Dwarf’s cryostasis had begun, YogLabs watched as their leader became more and more manic, his sense of empathy and humanity seemingly vanishing with each bottle of alcohol he used to forget the past. Oh, no one could doubt the man’s charisma when he wanted to flaunt it, but all of the employees knew they were dispensable to this man; they were only all clones of clones of clones, after all, hence their many faults and lack of initiative that only added the Xephos’ infuriation.  

So the testificate was perfectly entitled to believe that this sudden onset of fury was directed at them, and so was perfectly correct in simply throwing the folder of reports onto Xephos’ desk, before turning-tail and fleeing towards the door. Unfortunately for this engineer, Xephos recovered far quicker than he himself had even expected.

“Come now, friend,” Xephos allowed himself to purr to the testificate, perfectly disguising his slurring with the added effect of halting the engineer in their tracks. “Are you leaving so soon?” The testificate glanced over their shoulder, sucked in a breath, and forced an apologetic smile onto their face.

“According to my schedule, I’m afraid I have to be at the testing range in- well now, sir. So I’m going to have to leave you.” The engineer internally smiled in relief at the perfect alibi that they had just constructed.

“Please, my friend. I _control_ the schedules. So I can reshuffle them. No one is going to begrudge you for spending some time with me!” His voice is deceptively friendly and his lips are forcefully pulled up into a grin. No matter how much he detests the idiotic testificates, they were the only other form of vaguely intelligent life in YogLabs and in the surrounding area – other than the insane cannibal Lalnable, who Xephos only had meaningless conversations with when he was incredibly drunk or incredibly desperate - and Xephos _needed_ something to talk to that could reply with a somewhat coherent response. Something that wasn’t some gods forsaken toy that he had been bought once; it appeared to look like a stuffed yellow and black bird of some description, yet it had hard, wide eyes that mechanically blinked at him and a voice that replied nonsense in a robotic monotone.

Xephos ripped his thoughts away from the furry robot and used all of his willpower to give the figure in front of him the most intense stare that he could muster. He placed his elbows onto the desk in front of him and put his head into one of his hands, putting on a fake air of informality. He watched as the testificate tried to make polite eye contact with him, their gaze seemingly unblinking; but the dark eyes shot to the side every now and again, fearfully checking the room for dangerous traps or a potential escape.

"Please, friend, sit." Even though it was spoken calmly and lightly, the engineer had no doubt that it was anything other than a command. They shot one final glance out of the door that they were so close to, before moving towards the proffered seat in front of them, step by remorseful step; they felt like a convicted prisoner stepping up to the chopping block, a scene that they had heard was common in the barbaric lands outside of these white walls.

So the engineer gingerly perched on the overly large armchair that stood several feet away from Xephos' desk. The CEO waved his hand towards himself and waited expectantly for the testificate to shuffle the chair closer, the elaborately carved mahogany legs catching on the edge of the rug that had been laid down to cover the bare concrete beneath it. They watched Xephos warily, swallowing in fear, even though their mouth felt as dry as the Great Desert of the South.

"What's your name, friend?" The engineer shifted awkwardly at the posed question.

"Well, uh, you see, sir. We don't get given names straight away; we have a small ceremony when we reach 12 months old. So- uh... so many of us die before we reach that age that we would run out of names!" The testificate laughed in some attempt to lighten the tone, but it died in their throat. They looked down at the floor.

"What do they call you, then?" The sincere interest in Xephos' voice confused them; they were certain that he had no interest in the naming of the employees, yet still the attentiveness seemed genuine.

"Well, usually just 'intern' or 'apprentice', although that's an improvement from just 'you'." They did, in fact, have a number assigned to them, but they hated simply being defined by a randomly assigned mess of digits. They also had the nickname 'Shorty' amongst close companions, but they felt that saying that would be even more likely to end up backfiring in some way.

"Ah, I see." They both trailed off into silence as Xephos plucked the folder from its position teetering on the edge of the desk where it had landed after being thrown.

He flipped through it, page after page, using a graphite pencil to make small marks or notes about the contents. Even though Xephos seemed to spend much of his time as an aloof and apathetic being, high above the rest of YogLabs, that did not mean that he ignored his work. There was a reason he was so incredibly busy day in and day out. He sipped at his gin as he went through the reports, occasionally commenting on them to the engineer sat opposite, who replied with monosyllabic responses – followed by ‘sir’, of course. They had visibly relaxed due to the fact that the topic of conversation had shifted onto a subject he had had an entire lifetime experience in; from his very first moment on this planet he had been involved in engineering.

Xephos looked over the folder, occasionally checking various pieces of paper that were scattered over the desk that probably contained notes or diagrams of some description; at least this is what 'Shorty' assumed they were.

Suddenly, halfway through reading one of these papers, Xephos slammed the folder closed and shot upright, crumpling up the sheet of paper currently in his hand into a ball and tossing it into the incinerator that had the outer appearance of a waste paper basket.

"Look at me! Talking to you about a well done report and not even offering you a drink!" When Xephos said 'well done', it didn't mean that he would not be editing it; it wasn't that there were faults in the writing, more the fact that every report was made up of a wall of text. The main body was hardly split up at all and he had difficulty believing anyone had written them, let alone that anyone could bear to read them. What Xephos did was add subheadings, or a contents page, or highlighted and emboldened sections; sometimes he just doodled the YogLabs logo into the top corners of the pages, just to add something to the unbearable dullness.

This report he had read had been no different. It did not even have page numbers, which Xephos promised to fix. But now, he had other plans.

"D' you like gin?" He asked needlessly; he knew that the employees did not have access to any form of drinkable alcohol, yet it seemed polite to ask.

"I've never had it, sir." The expected answer came.

Xephos strolled towards a squat wooden table at the back corner of his room. The engineer looked at the various vials and test tubes that were crammed into the desk. There were beakers of deep red liquid, boiling tubes with a whole rainbow of colours, and a burette steadily dripping a clear liquid into a conical flask filled with a viscous, deathly black substance. The testificate couldn't hope to guess what any of the chemicals were, after all, they knew that Xephos was a chemist first and foremost, even with the dabbling he had done in engineering and arms production. 'Shorty' was but an engineer at the most basic level.

Xephos reached behind this equipment to pull up a plain-looking bottle of clear liquid, the blue and silver label had some strange font on it, of which the engineer could just about decipher the word 'gin' in amongst the other swirling letters.

"Now, you see," Xephos spoke as he gripped onto the bottle and forcefully twisted off the lid with a crack. "Not many people come and visit me here." He poured some of the drink into his glass, filling it nearly to the brim. "So many people seem to not trust me. It's rather sad, really."

His face shifted into a thoughtful look, looking over the small table top and deliberating. Finally, he let out a small noise of triumph and lifted an identical glass to the one in his other hand. "After all, I helped your people escape from their meagre lives in the wild villages outside, where bandits came along and burnt down houses or stole your most prized possession of insubstantial bread." Xephos inspected the crystal-cut tumbler by holding it up to the light, squinting at it and frowning melodramatically. "I made you someone. I gave you the chance to be more than simple animals, no better than mere pigs. I gave you purpose... Although some are better at it than others." The testificate could hear him mumbling about 'gods forsaken mould' and something about 'when he finds the person responsible for this'. They bit their lip, even though they knew that a dirty glass had nothing to do with an engineer such as them.

Xephos' hand hovered over the selection of liquids on the table, before lifting up a measuring cylinder with a toxic-yellow liquid inside. He tipped it into the unclean glass, swilling it so high that the liquid almost spilt over the edges, before emptying it out into an empty beaker. He then filled this glass to a slightly lower level than the other, the clear beverage glittering as it fell.

He spun around with the tumblers in his hands, placing the previously dirty one closer to the engineer. He made a gesture that the testificate assumed meant to take the cup, but they hesitated.

Xephos' exasperated sigh caused them to fall further back into the armchair, their spine pressed up against the high back. He snatched the glass closest to the testificate and pushed the one from which he had previously been drinking forwards. He then lifted up the new tumbler, casually placed one hand behind his head, and reclined in his chair, the black leather of the office seat creaking at the shift in weight; Xephos then raised the glass, as if as a toast, before throwing his head back and swallowing a large gulp down.

The testificate didn't want to risk angering their CEO and current host any further, so they took the tumbler, looking at the foreign liquid with curiosity. They had tasted alcohol once; someone had managed to brew a keg of ridiculously light cider by fermenting a batch of apples they had stolen from their experimental batch. They had heard some more senior employees enjoyed stronger beers and wines on occasion, but they had never heard of anyone drinking spirits. They had a sneaking suspicion as to why no one had ever reported drinking with Xephos.

Yet, even though their stomach dropped, they managed to pick up the courage allow the bitter, metallic tasting liquid to spill over their lips. The effect was burning and instant numbing of their oesophagus. It was not a pleasurable sensation, but they could not risk displeasing Xephos, so they continued to steadily sip at it, hiding the grimace behind a polite smile.

“So, friend, tell me about YogLabs.” The engineer’s face must have portrayed their feeling of confusion, because Xephos went on to add, “Your life here: What is new? Who are your friends? What are other people thinking?”

‘Shorty’ felt their mind drifting towards images of Jackie and Nick, two older testificates who had received the honour of a naming ceremony and had taken it upon themselves to show the new kid what was what in this new and confusing world the recently cloned testificate had entered into. Or perhaps the kindly Dr Williams who had treated their aches and pains, as well as offering advice on everything from work to worries. Maybe even just the nameless janitor who the engineer had bumbled into on occasion and struck up conversation with.

But they felt that saying any of these names to Xephos would only end up with their kindness being rewarded with inevitable pain. After all, testificates were not supposed _have_ social lives, so the less Xephos knew about them, the better.

Instead their response was about the only subject they could semi-confidently talk about. “Well as you know, in the report-“

Clearly this had been the wrong response.

Xephos picked up the aforementioned report, only to slam it down onto the desk with all of his might. The rumpling sound of paper was lost amidst the deafening crack of the thick card folder and its metal bindings colliding with the table. “Did my question reference the report? No. So why did you mention it?”

The testificate was visibly quaking in terror. They stumbled over their words in some attempt to give an answer. “Well I- Uh. Well, I just thought that m-m-maybe,” They eventually gave up and simply muttered, “I don’t know, sir. I’m sorry, sir.”

Xephos’ look of anger melted into disdain, before evaporating completely. Instead he asked a separate question. “What do my employees think of me?”

‘Shorty’ could hardly process the question, never mind give a sensible answer that would not end with their death. They had heard mutterings, of course, about ‘The Incident’ a couple of years previous; something about an uprising and murder. There were not many testificates left to tell the tale, as Xephos had culled any that he thought may have been part of the conspiracy in any way, shape, or form… This turned out to be most of them except a handful of senior staff and a variety of younger testificates.

Occasionally, they heard someone speak admirably about the plight of the testificates involved in ‘The Incident’; those people usually had unfortunate and fatal accidents that evening. These accidents often seemed to involve there being hardly enough left of the person to identify who it was, other than their nametag. However, the whispers and mutters grew stronger and stronger yet. No one had the bravery or stupidity to act on them, but they were undoubtedly present.

The engineer also had the awareness – although they felt this awareness fading along with their consciousness; they assumed the drink was to blame – to know that Xephos probably did not follow the ethos of ‘don’t shoot the messenger’, so admitting any of this information aloud would likely only end up with them having an unfortunate accident. Or possibly end up in Lalnable’s cage due to some fault in the secure enclosure. So they decided to go for the diplomatic answer.

“No offense, sir, but people don’t often see you around so they don’t know much about you.” This was true. Most testificates only knew Xephos’ face when he strode past them through the corridors; there were also a solid number of those lucky enough to have never crossed paths with him. The most anyone knew about the CEO was through hearsay and rumours.

Xephos nodded at this. “Thank you for your honesty. It is unfortunate that I am so busy and have no one that I could delegate these tasks to. The little free time I do get is so often spent doing various jobs that no one else seems capable of doing…”

Xephos’ words seemed to fade into silence, but the testificate could see his mouth still moving, lips forming words, but they fell on deaf ears. Their tongue, already so incredibly dry, felt as though all moisture was actively being sucked out of it. In response to this, the engineer quickly downed the rest of their drink in some attempt to relieve the dryness, but this only seemed to make it worse. It felt as if every nerve was being pulled out of its position and stretched to their breaking point.

Watching this happen with fascination, Xephos allowed himself to stop halfway through a sentence of some tactful and professional nonsense. The extreme thirst the person opposite him was obvious, but unexpected; Xephos instead decided to pour the remainder of his own glass into the testificate’s. If the engineer had been watching throughout the conversation, they would have noticed that Xephos did not take a single sip of the drink since his initial gulp, but it was far too late for this now.

It began with a small cough. Within 10 seconds it had developed into ‘Shorty’ seemingly choking on air, heaving and spluttering to try and clear the blocked passageway. Xephos checked his vintage pocket watch – the only piece of old technology that Xephos enjoyed using - and noted down what each development with an accurate time.

Bright red liquid began pouring out of the testficate’s nose, eyes, and ears, yet they still continued in their coughing fit, holding onto their throat as if they could dislodge the obstruction through sheer force of will sent through their hands. One final cough and the obstruction did in fact get dislodged and was now spilling out of the engineer’s mouth. The thick, black ooze seeped out as they gargled desperately in some attempt to take in a breath.

It took 46 more seconds for the twitching to finally stop, a fact that Xephos added and underlined with delight.

It had taken several months to develop a poison strong enough to cause such an unpleasant death and a while longer to give it the deceptive appearance of a drinkable beverage, with Xephos himself having the only antidote to it in all of Minecraftia. He looked at the bottle, still on his desk, his eyes tracing over the quite literally alien language on the label that simply read 'Warning: This is poisonous. Do not drink.'; unfortunately, no one else in this world knew what it said other than him, and he always did enjoy irony.

He pushed back the corpse, away from his desk and back in the chair so that none of the blood or ooze ended up on his papers. He then dragged the chair to a reasonably empty corner of the office, and smiled at his achievement. As he walked back to his desk, he noticed several spots of red dotting the various items he had on the floor of his room; he retrieved a small cloth and wiped down his old diamond sword of all traces of blood, laying it back next to the diamond pickaxe that had belonged to The Dwarf and checking both for any other signs of wear.

Glass was smashed from reasonably-sized chunks into menacing shards under Xephos’ booted feet as his strolled back to his desk and congratulated himself on a job well done. He had, after all, just dispatched of someone who had the audacity to lie to him about schedules and rotas that he himself wrote.

Xephos eyed-up the now empty glasses of his and knew that he should be proud of the fact that the antidote had worked so well and saved him from a similar fate to the body on the opposite side of the room, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to feel grateful for its success.

**Author's Note:**

> This story is set approximately 2 years after Honeydew was 'frozen' in the cloning tubes, which led to Xephos' loss of all empathy. Another potential title was 'Shooting the Messenger', but I felt it gave too many spoilers.
> 
> In this, 'Shorty' is referred to as 'they' as it was confirmed that all mobs in Minecraft are agender; this 'naming ceremony' the testificates undertake also includes the assignment of gender (a fucked up system, but this is YogLabs we're talking about here).
> 
> Yes, the 'furry robot bird' is a reference to a Furby... It's a long story, but basically after a discussion on the Zylus Discord, we ended up reaching the conclusion that Lewis' fursona would be a furry bee, hence 'FurBee', hence a bee Furby. Basically it's just a random Easter-egg for the fun of it.
> 
> This story was based off of this drawing by Firuis/Calletion: https://calletion.tumblr.com


End file.
